Software Engineering Manager - Infrastructure SRE

We’re making zero carbon happen

Note: These roles can be based from any of our offices or remotely within the UK. 

We’re OVO Group, a big family of companies united by a single vision: to get to zero carbon, fast. 

We call this Plan Zero – and it shows how we’ll be fighting the climate crisis and transforming the way people use energy over the next decade. To do this, we need the sharpest minds. Are you up for the challenge?

Do great green things with OVO Energy

So much has changed since we launched in 2009.  Our goal remains the same though: make energy cheaper, greener, and simpler. Just as it was on day one.

Everyone belongs at OVO

Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive movement: teams of brilliant people, with unique talents, skills, passions, and experiences. 

We encourage everyone to join us, whatever your gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, life experience, or background. So please come as you are – we can’t wait to meet you.

Where in the world of OVO will I be working?

You will be joining Infrastructure as part of the broader Infrastructure, Reliability and Developer Experience part of OVO’s engineering org.

As enablers, we exist to improve the efficiency, quality and reliability of all software built at OVO; a major part of this is through providing highly reliable developer infrastructure and platform abstractions that drive ease into the product development process and make effective service operations easier. Better software means less waste and ultimately that we can better support OVO customers on their journey towards zero-carbon living.

You’ll be reporting to the Senior Infrastructure Manager.

What will I be doing?

• Look after a team of Infrastructure SREs focused on Kafka and other Data/Messaging infrastructure primarily, but working with your Infrastructure, Platform and Production Engineering counterparts to provide SRE skills and benefits and leadership across our entire enabling organisation.
• Lead a mixture of perms, contractors and some nearshore team augmentation - we’ll be bootstrapping the team through various resourcing means to ensure we have the right skills and flexibility.
• Work closely with Heads of Engineering and Engineering Managers to make sure they’re well-informed and are balancing quality and flow with delivery of great enhancements to the end to end engineering experience.
• Be encouraged to always be looking at the continuous improvement of our products, tools and processes, along with helping to guide the architectural direction of our platform

Whilst you’re not expected to be hands-on with the code daily, you will have enough technical experience to be able to contribute to and guide technical discussions, bringing the big picture context. You’ll no doubt get involved hands-on in the early days as we build the team so be prepared to get your hands dirty.

Building strong teams is a vitally important aspect of the role, so you’ll be involved in recruitment, onboarding and personal development of engineers.  We have a very strong engineering culture that’s all about empowerment and ownership: all to solve one of the world’s greatest problems.

Is this the job for me?

• Passionate SRE and about nurturing engineering talent, encouraging their development, and also ensuring everyone is aligned with product delivery objectives
• You are genuinely excited about improving the developer experience and effectiveness through an enable and empower’ model building internal tools and platforms that make building software at scale effortless
• Believe in the principles of open communication, data-driven development and agile practices
• Experience with SRE, Infra-as-Code, containerisation  and Kubernetes, CI/CD and application performance monitoring stacks (APM)
• A strong understanding of SRE/Production Engineering principles
• You believe in high performing engineering teams who have a strong sense of autonomy in their technical decision making
• Use your influence and stakeholder management skills to have wide-reaching impact
• Experience with Kafka
• Strong in GCP or AWS; understand Cloud Native development practices
• You’re ideally active in (and/or want to increase your profile in) Community and Development Engagement (FOSS and within teams)
• Seek learning opportunities to deepen your expertise or broaden your knowledge.

Want to check out more?

• Working in Tech at OVO Energy
• Check out our Tech Stack
• Watch our video about joining OVO Tech Team
• See how we work on our blog and our Tech Blog
• OVO tech GitHub: https://github.com/ovotech

Brilliant benefits for a world-changing team

Our people are at the heart of Plan Zero. That’s why we offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to make you feel at home.

For starters, you’ll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays).

Then there’s Flex Pay. It’s an extra 9% of your salary on top of your core pay to use as you like. You can take it as cash, add to your pension, or choose to spend it on a huge range of flex benefits.

Here’s a taster of what’s on offer:

For your health
With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and more

For your wellbeing
With gym membership, gadget, travel and cyber insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, DNA testing, dental insurance, and more

For your lifestyle
With extra holiday buying, discount dining, culture cards, tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations

For your home 
Get up to £300 off any OVO Energy plan (when you pay by Direct Debit), plus personal carbon offsetting and great discounts on smart thermostats and EV chargers

For your commute
Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing, plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans

Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies? Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

Oh, and one last thing...

We’d be thrilled if you tick off all our boxes yet we also believe it’s just as important we tick off all of yours. And if you think you have most of what we’re looking for but not every single thing, go ahead and hit apply. We’d still love to hear from you!